


Painting

by dont-tell-them-i-write-phan (QueenBoudicatheGreat)



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Subspace, or something like it, possible reality, this is not porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-05
Updated: 2018-01-05
Packaged: 2019-02-28 14:15:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13273188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenBoudicatheGreat/pseuds/dont-tell-them-i-write-phan
Summary: Phil has an artistic side channel where he paints Dan’s back.





	Painting

**Author's Note:**

> Posted to dont-tell-them-i-write0-phan 7/13/15

“Hey, Dan, do you mind if I paint tonight?”

Dan looked up from his laptop to see Phil standing in the doorway with a wide grin on his face. Dan gave him a quick look over and spied the paint smears on his hands and wrists that indicated that he’d already set everything up. “Why did you even bother to ask if you were already going to do it?” he teased good naturedly.

Phil’s eyes sparkled as he snarked back, “There was no point in waiting  ****if I already knew you’d say yes.”

Dan rolled his eyes. “I should refuse just because you said that,” he threatened as he closed his laptop. He slowly stood up and stretched, popping his back before he tucked his laptop under his arm and turned to Phil with a cocked brow. “Shall we?”

Phil just beamed and led the way from the lounge to his room where a dramatic change had taken place. His bed had been stripped of its normal bedding and replaced with what used to be a plain white sheet under all the spatters and smears of paint. All of their professional lighting equipment had been carefully arranged and the camera was pointed towards the bed at a very high angle. On the side table stood several different pots of paint in more colors than Dan could name and a sketch pad with the drying remnants of a color test splashed across it.

“Are you doing another speedpaint video?” Dan asked, taking off his shirt and slipping into the low rise trackers he and Phil had picked up from the local thrift store for this very purpose.

“Mhm,” Phil hummed distractedly, fiddling with his paint pots again. “It’s been over a month since the last one.” He turned back to Dan and offered a gentle smile. “You ready, love?”

Dan nodded shyly. Even after years of being a part of YouTube and a year and a half of participating in Phil’s artistic secret side channel, he still got a little nervous knowing that his naked torso would be on the internet for everyone to see. True, it would just be his back (they were both very careful that neither of their faces were ever caught on camera) and everyone would be focused on Phil’s painting, but that wasn’t the point. He stretched one last time before climbing on the bed and laying face down.

Phil bustled around for a second, setting up Dan’s laptop and charger, making sure Dan could reach the straw to his water and doing one final check on the camera to be sure that Dan’s back was the only thing visible before he climbed over Dan to straddle his hips and sit lightly on his butt. He bent over to whisper a quiet “Thank you,” in Dan’s ear and peck a quick kiss to the back of his neck (both of which calmed Dan’s nerves immensely) and the work began.

Dan gasped slightly at the first broad stroke of the brush across his shoulders. No matter how often they did this (which was at least once every couple weeks) that first touch of freezing paint always startled him. But even before Phil had finished cooing his apology, Dan was accustomed to the feeling and was back to browsing through Tumblr.

Tumblr was actually what started this, he mused absently. About two years ago, he’d seen a post by someone he’d followed and in it there were pictures of a young woman carefully laid out and showing off the various paintings sprawled across her back. Dan had begged Phil to let them do it, and after a week of wild promises and fluttering lashes Phil had relented. As predicted, the painting on Phil’s back was rubbish and they had laughed about it as they scrubbed it off, and then it was Phil’s turn. To be quite honest they had both expected Phil’s to come out even worse - they didn’t exaggerate his lack of drawing skills for a laugh. Well not too much - but when Phil had sat up an hour later Dan was speechless. On his back a tree had blossomed, its roots almost dipping into the waistband of his trousers and its leaves stretching up between his shoulder blades. Dan had immediately made Phil take a picture of it which he then posted to his own side blog with the caption “Gotta love an artistic boyfriend ;)” Within an hour it had over 500 notes and they had a new hobby. After some serious convincing, Phil made another Tumblr blog specifically for his art where he could answer questions. A few months after that his new fans began begging for a speedpaint and with Dan’s enthusiastic support the new channel was formed. Dan often wondered how their fans (the original fans) would react if they ever found out that they often spent hours on Phil’s bed with Phil straddling Dan’s hips, filming themselves and posting it on YouTube. The results were always humerous.

“You okay, love?”

Dan was jerked out of his reminiscing by the sudden soft words. He made a small sound of confused distress when he felt thumbs gently digging into his back and tried to squirm away; it felt great but he didn’t want Phil’s painting messed up. “Hey, hey, it’s alright,” Phil soothed. “That part is just the base coat and I’ll have to re-do it anyways. Everything is fine.”

“Wassamatter?” Dan grunted. He would have been startled at the amount of energy it took, but he was too tired.

“It’s been over an hour since you last moved,” Phil explained, pecking kisses all over the unpainted neck in front of him. “I thought maybe you were asleep, but you were just staring at your computer screen. You don’t usually go under that early.”

Dan hummed in agreement. Every time they did this Dan kind of lost himself. It wasn’t anything bad but the rhythmic brushstrokes and steady warmth on his hips combined with the natural peace he felt around Phil made it easy to slip away. Normally it took him a couple hours to get to that point but a quick check of the clock told him it’d only taken thirty minutes this time. Oh well.

Phil slid off of Dan, ignoring the whine of protest, so he could kneel down on the floor to be face to face. When Dan squinted at him he laughed. “I meant it when I said you hadn’t moved in an hour,” he chuckled. “That includes drinking and eating. Now come on, you need something to drink.” He gently put the straw to Dan’s lips and smiled when he immediately started suckling. “That’s my good boy. Can you eat a few grapes for me?”

Dan obediently opened his mouth and chewed the sweet fruit, earning himself more praise. “Whatcha makin’?” he slurred when Phil took a moment to pop a grape in his own mouth.

“You know that’s against the rules,” Phil teased, gently tapping Dan on the nose. Dan smiled and hid his face in his folded arms. He knew he wasn’t supposed to know what was being painted or see anything before the finished product, but he also knew Phil wouldn’t mind him asking. It was part of their ritual. Every time Phil painted he took a break about halfway through and when he took a break Dan asked what he was painting and he refused to give away any details. “Just a couple more hours, love. This one is a little more simple than my others.”

Dan nodded and took a deep breath as Phil climbed back on and got back to work. He knew that once he had slipped away it was actually much harder staying in this world than it was going back to the other. Sure enough, as soon as he felt that brush touch his skin he started to float and quickly lost himself in the quirky melody of Phil painting.

Dip, brush, brush, swiiiiiiiiiipe, dabdabdab, brush, brush, brush, swirl. Dip, brush, dabdab, cuuuuurl. Dip, brush, brush, brush…

“It’s time to come back now, love.”

That voice was always the thing that brought Dan back. That deep, gentle voice that held so so much love in it. That voice was better than any floating and Dan always came back to it. As always, he came back to the feeling of hands massaging away his previously unnoticed aches and pains. This time they were on his calf.

“You ready to take the picture now, love?” Phil asked, bending over to give Dan a quick kiss on the cheek.

“‘S already dry?” Dan mumbled, lifting his head from the cradle of his arms. Thanks to photographic evidence, he knew that right now his entire face was red and his eyes were glassy but he honestly couldn’t bring himself to care at that exact moment.

“It sure is,” Phil assured him. “And I’ve already got the sheets and your pants picked out. Do you want help changing?”

Dan shook his head as he shakily got to his feet. “Make th’ bed,” he muttered with as much authority as he could muster at the moment. That is to say, none.

Phil chuckled and handed Dan the pants he’d selected. When they first decided to start showing off Phil’s work they’d gone and gotten an entire rainbow of low rise skinny jeans and sheets to better accent the colors Phil had used. If his fans could see him now, they’d never recognize him, Dan thought with a grin. After almost falling several times (Phil managed to steady him every time) he turned around and looked at the bed. Today he was wearing a pair of bright aqua pants and Phil had put a deep purple sheet on the bed. Dan could only wonder what the painting was.

Phil gently coaxed Dan into position on the bed. This time he had his arms crossed with his face hidden, much like he had been for the second half of the painting process. “Your pretty little curls make this perfect,” Phil said, gently running his fingers through Dan’s hair to get it perfectly mussed. Dan whined his disagreement but said nothing. Dan heard the distinctive artificial shutter sounds of their camera from several different angles before Phil decided he was satisfied and helped Dan sit back up so they could review the photos.

Dan gasped. “Oh my god. Phil.” In the tiny viewfinder Dan saw what he knew was his back, but he honestly had a hard time believing it wasn’t just a window into space. Clouds of blues and pinks and purples swirled across his shoulder blades; spots of lights danced in and out, seeming to sparkle all on their own; and right in the center a huge spiral galaxy dominated the canvas, filled with more stars and colors than Dan thought could fit in such a tiny space.

“Not too bad, I take it?” Phil joked, resting his chin on Dan’s shoulder so they could both see the camera.

“It’s beautiful, Phil. Oh my god, it’s amazing.”

“Looks like someone’s finally come back from Wonderland.”

Dan turned his head to kiss the cheek next to him. “Nah, I’m still kind of floaty, I’m just in shock.”

Phil laughed. “Well then, let’s get you in the bath. That paint’s going to start flaking and cracking and you’ve made sure we both know how itchy that is.”

Dan pouted and crossed his arms. “I wanna keep it.”

“The paint will wear off.”

“Then I’ll get it tattooed on.”

“But then I won’t have my canvas.”

Dan sighed, but relented and allowed Phil to lead him to the bathroom. If there was anything Dan loved more than Phil’s art it was helping Phil make his art. “I still don’t get how the guy who can hardly draw a stick man on notebook paper can make stuff like this.”

“I guess I’m only as good as my canvas,” Phil grinned, stopping next to the already full tub.

Dan groaned and buried his face in Phil’s chest, refusing to help him remove the skinny jeans. “I can’t believe I set you up for that one,” he pouted, carefully stepping into the warm water. He scowled at Phil when he kneeled on the tile. “Aren’t you joining me?”

“Someone has to wash off the paint,” Phil teased, holding up a washrag.

“You know, baths aren’t actually all that good for cleaning,” Dan mused, focusing on not getting lost in the gentle swipes across his back. “You just kind of sit in a puddle of all the stuff you just washed off. It’s like a dirty human stew.”

“Yeah, well,” Phil chuckled, dumping a cup full of water over Dan’s head, carefully avoiding his face, “when I trust you enough to stand up on your own we’ll take a shower. You may have your words back but you’re still shakier than a newborn giraffe.”

Dan stuck his tongue out but silently allowed Phil to continue. This was another thing they did; after every painting session Phil treated Dan like spun glass for days, no matter how long or short Dan spent under. Part of him wanted to be annoyed and snap that he could take care of himself but the larger part that reveled in the attention always managed to shut it up. Not to mention the fact that Phil always looked so happy when he got to pamper Dan. His already gentle smile softened and his eyes sparkled like sapphires and he looked at Dan like he hung the moon. Yeah, Dan would be dumb to complain too much.

So, he just lets Phil do his thing and doesn’t complain when Phil dries him off and puts him in another pair of trackers and bundles him up in a blanket burrito to take him down stairs. He doesn’t complain when Phil grabs a pre-made tray of bite-sized finger foods from the fridge and feeds them to Dan as they cuddle on the couch and watch Howl’s Moving Castle for the five hundredth time. He doesn’t complain when Phil gently shakes him awake and shepherds him to bed with soft words and softer touches. He doesn’t complain when Phil takes his normal role as big spoon and pulls him tight to his chest. He doesn’t complain when Phil leans forwards so his lips are brushing the shell of Dan’s ear and whispers “I love you.”


End file.
